Welcome to Fiction Forge Indy! We are a group of four writers in Indianapolis that love to talk about anything that has to do with writing. We all met at the Indiana Writers Center and come from four very different backgrounds with interests in Fantasy, Mystery, Humor, Romance, and Historical Fiction. Prepare to be informed and entertained! Oh --and by the way, we hope you share your thoughts on the craft of writing, too.

Sunday, July 22, 2018

Victim Writing Excuses

I'm back to The Writer's Idea Book by Jack Heffron. Heffron writes about some of the obstacles that keep us from being creative and keep us from producing the writing that we want. Here's an excerpt and a prompt from Chapter 2:

All of us are, at times in our lives, victims. Life can be cruel. And we use the role of victim to stop being creative. We give up control of our creative selves because

our families don't understand or appreciate us.

our bosses are demanding and fill our lives with stress.

our children are demanding and will our lives with stress.

our finances are a mess.

our mates are insensitive to our needs for space to create.

our cars refuse to run properly.

our neighborhoods are noisy and overrun with children.

...The Victim makes some valid points. The key is taking back the power.... Stop making your lack of a creative life the fault of someone or something other than yourself. Any or all of the reasons on the list above might be true for you....

PROMPT: List the most common and frequent reasons you give for not spending enough time being creative. Next to each entry on the list, note who is in control of that situation. Now write a short plan for taking back control. It may require some tough admissions and a little creativity, but you're taking the first step toward opening your creative side.

I am certainly guilty of this. In the past couple of years, my work, home, and family have changed, and finding time and space to write is not as easy as it once was. Unfortunately, I have blamed my situation instead of taking responsibility for what I can and making space for my creative work.

In talking to other writers, this can be easy to do--blame family, work, finances, and environment for our lack of creative life. But these are just excuses. If we are going to create, the excuses do not matter.

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Contributors

Heather McGrail

Heather

Heather spent much of her life in school, teaching, and traveling--generally investing lots of experiences about which to write. Now, she is settled into the quiet, Midwest with a boring office job to write about her experiences. Too bad her current experiences are great writing material, too!

Heather has been active in this blog and the Indiana Writers' Center for many years. Yeah for great writers and great support for writers in the community!

Mike Moir

Mike

Hi. My name is Michael Moir and I'm a writer.

I don't know when I became addicted to the printed word, but over time I have found that I can't put it away from me. My therapist says it has to do with the little yellow books that were forced upon me in Kindergarten (See Spot Run...Run, Spot, Run! RUN!!!), but in the depth of my soul, I know it is deeper than that. I was born with this in my very DNA. Phrasing, grammar, and plot structure are as sure in my being as cytosine is to guanine. It is a dark and wildly fantastic creature that gires and gimbles in the shadowed places of my soul. I have been told that I must find a way to purge the wordful animal within (my therapist recommended me to a witch doctor in the Andes), but I have decided to learn to live with it. This desire, this compulsion, this demon that is writing is me and I am it.

I call him Steve.

Randall Scott Wireman

Randy

Hi! I am Randy. I'm pretty sure that I started writing when I held my first crayola. Unfortunately, I grabbed the white one which left little proof of my brilliant earlier works! I write fiction that's often centered on gay characters - but sometimes off-centered gay characters, too -Ha! Because of the poor recording or admittance of such affairs due to prevailing political and religious views, such historical possibilities of gay relations are difficult to accept, let alone imagine. But, of course gay relations occurred, and much more often than the historical records dictate. I like to give honor to my gay brothers and sisters of our hushed past by conjuring such situation backdrops of history and breathing life into what I cannot know really occurred, but what I feel is closer to reality than it is to fiction.

Nick Dyakanoff

Nick

Nick Dyakanoff recently started writing and exploring the world of workshops and blogs with our strange group. He tells lots of amazing stories from growing up in Alaska, working on different ships, exploring the music industry, and settling into Midwestern life.

Writing has become a new way to share these stories. He looks forward to sharing more of his stories on this blog.